GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 71, 21 February 1940, Page 10

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. DELEGATES FROM ABROAD. Per Press Association. YVELLINGTON, Fob. 20. Delegates from all over New Zealand and from overseas Churches are attending the Centennial Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, which opened in YY’ellington to-night. Among the overseas delegates are Rev. YV. Miskelly, of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Rev. J. G. Inkster, of the Presbyterian Church of Canada; Y r ery Rev. Dr John Mackenzie, of the Presbyterian Church of Australia; and Mr E. M. Jarvis, of the Presbyterian Church of South Africa. Professor J. Baillie, of the Church of Scotland. Mr P. T. Cnffyn, of the Presbyterian Church of England, and representatives of the Presbyterian Churches in the United States of America, were to have attended, but were unable to do so because of the outbreak of war.

The Assembly received greetings from the Presbyterian Church in the United States, the United Church of Canada, the National Bible Society of Scotland, the General Presbyterian Alliance (an alliance of Reformed Churches throughout the world holding the Presbyterian system), the United Free Church of Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland, the Presbyterian Church of Wales, the Federation of Protestant Churches in Switzerland, the Evangelical Church of Bohemian Brethren, and the Evangelical Church of Germany. CLOS ER. CO-OR DIN A T lON. The opinion that there was a very urgent need for closer and more active co-ordination between the Churches ol Australia and New Zealand was expressed by Y ? ery Rev. Dr Mackenzie, former Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, and representative of that Church at the Assembly, in replying to the Moderator’s welcome. In many respects the Churches of Australia and Now Zealand were complementary to each other, and already one had given much to the other, he said. In the present distress Australia and New Zealand were facing common dangers, opportunities and problems. This political and economic relationships of the two countries with each other in the past had been most unsatisfactory. In that sphere a certain childishness had been manifest, blit the second Great YY’ar had altered all that. The two nations were realising once more that they were one people with a common destiny and duty. Recognition of that elementary fact must have consequences both for the Church and the State of the highest significance.